


Untethered

by t0talcha0s



Category: Hunter X Hunter
Genre: Canon Compliant, Chairman Election Arc (Hunter X Hunter), Duality of being a college student and a hunter, Gen, He loves those boys so much, Hospital, Leorio thoughts, Leorio's Perspective of It All, Third Person POV
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-24
Updated: 2020-10-24
Packaged: 2021-03-08 19:08:33
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,137
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27181580
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/t0talcha0s/pseuds/t0talcha0s
Summary: Leorio Paradinight should be studying for his exams, if you ask his professors but he's not, he's on TV, accidentally running for Hunter Association Chairman and the entirety of his being is focused on one thing: healing Gon Freecss.
Relationships: Gon Freecs & Leorio Paladiknight
Comments: 4
Kudos: 36





	Untethered

**Author's Note:**

  * For [neverwherever](https://archiveofourown.org/users/neverwherever/gifts).



> For the roomie, thanks for helping me procrastinate on MY college homework. Leorio, I feel you.

Leorio Paradinight is a college student but Leorio Paradinight is also a hunter. He sometimes uses that fact as an icebreaker during first-day-of-class introductions. He stopped after one too many professors reminded him that _you may be a hunter but you’re a student first._ He wasn’t entirely sure that was true, he wasn’t sure which he was. Every now and then, if he’s drunk enough and if someone at a party brings it up, he’ll launch into stories of the exam and the journeys and he’ll say 

“Remember last september when there was all that drama in Yorknew?” He tries his best not to bring it up, firstly because people are either intimidated or not interested and secondly because he gets a little sad when he does. The riveting exam schedule of anatomy seminars and days spent writing up lab reports with his chemistry partners doesn’t always hold up to life or death hostage situations and storming assassins’ villas. Also, he loves his college friends, he does, but sometimes he misses those two crazy kids and that stuck up survivor. It hurt to be reminded of them, how Gon and Killua are off accomplishing incredible things, and so _young_ and Kurapika has risen to the top of the mob hierarchy in such a short time. They feel like real hunters and Leorio, as he shuffles from class to class with his backpack hiked up on one shoulder, doesn’t. Leorio keeps a photo of the four of them on his desk: his arms wrapped around the boys and an unimpressed Kurapika giving a rare hint of a love-annoyed smile. He looks at that photo a lot. Almost every day. It’s just that there’s something fundamental missing in his college life, or maybe it’s him, like this life shouldn’t belong to him, like he’s looking at it through the window of a funhouse. Leorio all stretched out and over-tall, trying to fit himself into a too-small life, trying to ignore the pull of adventure at his bones. 

He was in the library when his worlds collided, his lab partners crammed around a small table quizzing each other. He didn’t recognize the number when his phone rang. He picked up anyway, looking back on it he’s really grateful for that. 

“Is this Leorio?” The voice was deep and spoke with an air of ease. 

“Sure, but who the hell are you?” One of Leorio’s lab partners gave him a concerned cock of the eyebrow but Leorio waved his hand to assure them it was a nonissue and got up, pacing to a louder portion of the library. 

“Name’s Morel, Morel Mackernasey, Killua gave me this number.” 

“How do you know the boys?” 

“We worked together.” Leorio was prepared with about eighty questions _How are they? What kind of work? Did you treat them well? What happened? Are they okay? They’re just kids, tell me they’re okay?_ “I’m calling to tell you Gon’s in the hospital.” 

Leorio’s heart beat. Then it didn’t. Then it beat again. 

“What hospital?” There was a hint of appreciation in Morel’s voice as he responded

“Swardani” 

“I’ll be there by the end of the day.” and Morel didn’t even say goodbye before he hung up. 

-

The traffic on the way to the airport made Leorio consider abandoning his taxi and running the whole way there. Gon would appreciate that, he was never one for the slow way of things. Leorio’s mind couldn’t keep off Gon, was captivated with all of their memories. He jiggled his leg as he thought of him. Leorio had a duffle bag haphazardly stuffed with all of his clean clothing and his briefcase, though he thought that might be a lot to carry. He occupied himself with calling people, to no avail: Kurapika Kurapika Kurapika Killua Gon Killua Kurapika Kurapika Kurapika Kurapika and so on and on. On the plane he texted. He impatiently waited for responses that didn’t arrive. Paragraph after paragraph to any number he had who knew Gon. The only person who responded was Zepile

 _Is everything alright?_ Leorio didn’t think he knew enough to respond honestly, not with the way the thought of Gon laid bare on a white hospital bed tore tears from the backs of his eyes. He ignored Zepile, instead scrolling back into the histories of his texts. He noticed how little he had texted the boys before: cheerful exchanges on their birthdays, the odd photo from Gon, a congratulations to Killua after Zepile told him about the hunter exam, how Killua took down every participant in there. _You really got ‘em good, congrats Kid_ to Killua and _Aren’t those two crazy?_ to Zepile, who responded _Like nothing I’ve ever seen, he was like a storm._

-

Outside Gon’s hospital room there was not a figure Leorio recognized. What was worse: there were a lot of people. A man with a large hat, a man about his age still wearing a school uniform, a young girl with a braid that circled her head and settled on the nape of her neck. 

They all turned to look at him and Leorio had a brief instinctual thought of _I shouldn’t be here_ before angrily pushing it aside - none of these people knew Gon like he did, as long and as well as he had, maybe that wasn’t saying much considering it had only been a couple years but Leorio refused to feel like he was the one trespassing here. He was Gon’s first friend off Whale Island, he’d seen that boy grow from a jittery kid climbing the masts of the ship to the hunter exam, making the crew squawk with concern, to a budding nen user, still causing trouble, leaping from bed to bed in the hotel room, causing the fitted sheets to bunch up off the corners. 

_Stop it!_ He’d chided and captured Gon in a headlock. His hair was soft against Leorio’s fist and he squirmed out of his arms, away from the noogie. A man, broad enough to be four men, in a hospital gown clapped his hand on Leorio’s shoulder. His pinkie rested against his collarbone, his thumb grazing the bottom of his delt. It made Leorio feel small, but he didn’t show it, instead picked the man’s hand up by the middle finger and removed it from his shoulder. 

“Leorio.” The man said

“Who are you?” He asked, trying to make out Gon’s silhouette behind the curtains of the four-poster bed the hospital had him set up in. There was a dark something there, under all the blankets and bandages and tubing. Leorio hated to believe it was Gon. 

“Morel, we spoke on the phone.” 

“Morel,” Leorio’s voice was still, with all the focus of an ice skater ripping across a pond, his words sailed into the question without permission, “what happened to him?” Morel looked at him with a sad sort of honesty, like he was sorry for what he was about to say. 

“I don’t know.” he said “something awful.”

-

Every few days Morel and Leorio got lunch in the hospital mess hall. It was the only way Leorio could get himself into the hospital, could get glimpses and updates of Gon outside of the weekly visiting hours. He wasn’t family, he wasn’t Killua (who Leorio had heard carried Gon into the hospital and laid him on that bed himself, a cold desperation in his eyes, the clinging shadows of tears on his cheeks), and he wasn’t willing to threaten and prod his way in. Morel was still hooked up to a portable IV, ensuring that infection stayed away from his wounds, limping to the table while the wheels squeaked against the polished linoleum. 

“How’d you get injured?” Leorio asked one day “What were you guys up to?” 

“Most of it is classified, but I was fighting a creature, a strong creature. I barely stood a chance. Gon’s was worse too.” Morel laughed then, overloud and overlong, like he didn’t know what else to do, like that was the only way he had to conceive the horror of it all. 

Another day Leorio got pushy with him, if not a bit rude. To his credit, he was hungover and upset and dealing with all of the chairman business. But it was rude nonetheless. 

“Why did you put them into that situation? They’re kids, Morel, Gon’s lived on an island his whole life, Killua’s been smothered by his family, they’re just two crazy kids they’re naive they couldn’t have known what they were getting into!” Morel’s gaze is uncompromising. 

“They’re pro-hunters, I treated them like it. They chose to go in there,”

“You never should have given them the choice.” 

-

Leorio’s university email inbox is overflowing. 

_Dear Mr. Paradinight,_

_I noticed you haven’t been in class lately, nor have you submitted the essay 2 draft which was due on Monday. As the syllabus states, if you are absent for six or more classes I will drop you from the course. If you provide adequate documentation that is a different matter._

_I wish you the best,  
Professor Christina Reynolds. _

_Hey Leorio,_

_Did you do the studyguide? What did you get for #6_

_-Haruomi_

_Leorio,_

_Is everything all right? You’ve missed four discussion posts in the past few weeks. If something has come up I’m willing to drop the posts you just need to keep me in the loop._

_Best!  
MJC _

He swipes on them to send them to the trash, doesn’t even bother with their opening. He’ll get around to it, he promises himself he will, but every waking moment, every impulse in his body is focused on Gon in that bed in those bandages in that building. 

-

Leorio was getting used to the crowd that surrounded Gon’s hospital suite. He even recognized some of them, Melody and Hanzo he had particularly pleasant relationships with. But the days never got less tragic. Especially once Leorio began really picking up a fanbase among the hunters. People or journalists would try to follow him, even if they knew he was going to visit Gon, even if Gon was at the center of Leorio’s platform, even if Leorio’s desperate cries for his friend’s help couldn’t really be called a platform. He found himself wishing for Killua’s stealth, for Kurapika’s ability to eschew the spotlight, for Gon’s’ ability to embrace it. He felt out of his skin. 

The first time Leorio saw himself on television he was sitting in a cafe next to the Hunter Association, trying to calm himself with a cup of tea, and he just looked up at the TV and there he was. It’s never not strange, seeing yourself disembodied. And Leorio couldn’t stand the sight of himself up there, how frayed he looked, like he was one more devastation from unravelling. It was the stress, he knew, but he couldn’t stand to see it so clearly. He promptly got up from his seat, left a large tip for the kind waitress, and left.

Worse than the attention, worse than the cameras and the questions, was the whiplash. Leorio went from debates with the highest ranking members of the Hunter Association, two and three star hunters with auras that shone like glass and pressed against him in the slim corridors, to his hotel room, to the streets of the city, where those who were everyday citizens, who barely knew about hunters outside of children’s books and the caricatures in movies, couldn’t spare a passing glance to him other than to think _woah he’s tall._ In the hunter world he was unimpressive, a rookie who only passed because Netero made the exam more lax that year. The graphic that displayed his name on the hunter news coverage said “Leorio Paradinight, Rookie Hunter, College Student”. He ping-ponged between the mundane and the incredible and he didn’t have a place in either of them. It was exhausting. Each night he fell asleep within minutes of reaching his hotel room and each morning he woke up and grappled for his phone. He called Kurapika, to no avail, Morel, to ask for information on Gon’s case, and Killua, just to check on him to make sure he was standing. 

Killua, surprisingly, answered. There was always a background presence monitoring the calls, the coin guy who toed the line between politeness and downright threatening. He answered though and Leorio could ask him

“How’re you doing?” He meant in general, he meant since the horrible things Morel (and Knov and Knuckle and Meleoron and Ikalgo, there was so much Leorio had missed in these boys’ lives.) hinted at. He meant _You’re just a boy_ and he meant _I know you miss him, I know how much you love him, this must be the hardest for you._ But Killua just blandly said

“I’m close, I should be at the hospital within the next few days.” It hurt, to think Killua didn’t assume Leorio was asking about him, caring about him, that he only cared about the mission, about success and not about Killua. Leorio didn’t say that though, he just said

“Sounds good.” 

-

At the debate, the final one with him and Pariston, Leorio felt the nerve wracking effect of being toyed with by a true hunter. He was also distracted. Right in the front row was Ging, arms folded over his chest, leaning against some man with ratty clothes, a broken tooth, and big hair. He looked like he was about to fall asleep. Leorio’s focus was torn, between the rat next to him, the insulting view of Ging, and Gon off so far away, lungs propped up by ventilators. He was barely aware of himself as Pariston quizzed him and rambled on about hunter bylaws and the constitution. Even if Leorio hadn’t zoned all the way out during their post-exam hunter class he would still have no idea what Pariston was talking about. He answered his questions with frustration and stood there tapping his foot as the high-ranking animal-people of the Hunter’s Association got all up in arms about changes to the exam and emergency meetings and whatever else.

“Leorio!” From the top of the stairs of the auditorium. Then again, louder as the door swung up. “Leorio!” It was Morel, still dressed in his hospital gown, tears and snot streaming down his features, his sunglasses askew from where he pushed them up to rub at the endless streams. He couldn’t even speak further, just raised his hand and gave a thumbs up. The debate: Pariston, Ging, Cheadle, the entire crowd of hunters, diminished into just one point, a spiky head making its way into the light of the door. 

“Gon?” It was a question, quiet and desperate, and then it wasn’t. “Gon!” He cried, and his body acted before he did. The thump of his microphone hitting the ground was loud over the speakers but his shaking footfalls, the sound of his heart in his ears, the little chuckle that Gon gave before he leapt into the air, there was nothing else.

The weight of Gon as he landed in Leorio’s arms made him stumble a bit, and it forced prickle-little tears from Leorio’s eyes, and then more, and then more and more and he was sobbing. The white of Gon’s hospital shirt was darkening where Leorio shoved his face between the boy’s jaw and shoulder, his arms were tight tight tight around him, Gon, finally, felt like more than air in his grasp. 

“I’m so glad!” he said, without even thinking, his mind was an empty depthless white, the only thoughts being Gon, Gon, Gon. “I’m so glad you’re alright.” He held Gon away from his body, spinning him around to get more of that sun-burst smile, examining the boy. He couldn’t not touch him, Gon didn’t seem to mind. 

“Did I look bad?” He asked, a genuine sort of curiosity in his tone. Like he hadn’t known really what had happened, like that time from the incident to the cure was outside of his understanding. He scoops Gon back up again, holding him close as he can.

“Bad doesn’t even begin to describe it.” As Gon laughs Leorio’s chest feels tight. 

-

Now that Gon had recovered, now that things had calmed down, the only thing to do was keep moving. Gon and Killua and he left the next morning with Killua’s sister in tow, a strange sort of knotted complication between the two of them. In the airport Leorio hugged them both close, first Killua, who complained and muttered but wound an arm tight around him like he never had before and made Leorio hold back tears. Then Gon who clung to him and thanked him for being there and laughed when Leorio lifted him up to hold him closer. Leorio put his hand on his back and cried and then swung an arm over Killua and pulled him in tight and held the two of them like he could make them stop hurting, and make them stop running into situations that would get them hurt, and make them realize how much he loved them, how much love there was between them. When he finally let them go Killua cleared his throat and said

“You’re such a softie old man” and Leorio laughed and Gon laughed as they both wiped tears from their faces and Killua’s sister laughed at how he had tears in his. 

As the three of them walked out of Leorio’s view he waved large arcs and waited until they were completely out of view to turn back into the crowded din of the airport. It felt like he wasn’t a hunter anymore, like he wasn’t almost elected chairman. He made his way back to his hotel room, folding his clothing and packing it away with a rote concentration. Even though it was all over, the stress hadn’t left his body yet. It sat among the happiness and the tears and the bone-deep weariness that mulled together in his stomach. He left a tip for the cleaning staff and only tried to haggle a little with the employee at the check-out desk. He was, first and foremost, exhausted. Exhausted and out of place. He hailed a cab and hunched in the backseat of it, stretching his legs out to both footwells. 

“Where’re you going?” 

“Nowhere good, back to college, Yorkshin” The cabbie didn’t laugh at Leorio’s not-joke, just nodded and hummed to the music on the radio. It was the end of a journey, Leorio supposed, and he wasn’t too keen to get back on the horse immediately. He had 961 emails when he finally opened the app on his phone again, and he closed it directly after seeing the number. He’d deal with it when he was back in his dorm room, when he didn’t have to be a hunter anymore.

**Author's Note:**

> I project into my fanfiction by having Gon Freecss get as many hugs as possible. If you're into it leave me a little note, a little comment, I always appreciate them.


End file.
